A grocery store in St. Paul is closing, leaving 96 employees out of a job and nearby residents with fewer grocery options. We talked with a councilmember and a leader of a local group about efforts to fill vacant lots and revitalize the area.

The man charged in the shootings of Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses could face the death penalty in his federal case. We got some context on how prosecutors and juries make capital punishment decisions.

We talked to a reporter who followed two Minneapolis eighth graders through their first year of school in the United States.

In the latest Wander and Wonder, we met a man fighting for honeybees.

Twin Cities rapper NUR-D is dropping a new album on Wednesday. We got a sneak peek.

Our Minnesota Music Minute was “Chunkadelic” by NUR-D and our Song of the Day was “Late Bloom” by Vicky Laske.

Federal prosecutors say it’s possible they will seek the death penalty in the case of Vance Boelter, the man charged with killing Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and wounding Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette.

It’s been more than 100 years since Minnesota’s last state execution. The state abolished capital punishment in 1911. Federal prosecutors have not sought the death penalty in a Minnesota-based case since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

Robin Maher joined MPR News host Nina Moini to talk about the possibility that Boelter will face the death penalty. Maher is the Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

Another grocery store is leaving St. Paul. Cub Foods in the Hamline-Midway neighborhood announced it will close on August 2. The closure will leave just one major grocer nearby, Target, though Aldi and other smaller ethnic grocery stores are in the neighborhood. It also follows the closure of nearby Lunds & Byerlys in downtown St. Paul.

The closing Cub Foods will leave an additional vacancy in a neighborhood that is working to revitalize.

Interim St. Paul city council member Matt Privratsky, who represents part of the Hamline-Midway area and Dawn Einwalter, president of the Hamline Midway Coalition joined Minnesota Now to talk about the future of business in the area.

In middle school, so much can change over the course of a single school year, or even a semester. A new story by Sahan Journal goes inside a Minneapolis classroom where students who recently moved to the United States are learning to navigate not just a new school but also a new country.

Education reporter Becky Dernbach followed two eighth-graders through their first few months of school, which coincided with President Trump’s return to the White House, a federal immigration crackdown – and heightened fears of deportation.

Dernbach joined Minnesota Now to talk about her reporting.

Democratic state Sen. Nicole Mitchell will resign her seat after she was found guilty on burglary charges late last week. Politics reporter Dana Ferguson will join us from the Capitol to explain how this could change the political balance of the legislature.

Democratic Socialist and state Sen. Omar Fateh won the Minneapolis DFL endorsement for Mayor. He's the first mayoral candidate to do so since 2009.

A new report finds that warming is accelerating in the Great Lakes region due to climate change.

And a north Minneapolis organization is moving into a larger space to help people keep their pets as costs rise.

Plus, the WNBA All-Star Game blurs the usual team rivalries. But the Minnesota Lynx took it by storm.

Our Minnesota Music Minute was “The Horse” by Products Band and our Song of the Day was “It’s U” by Rob Coates.

Two Minnesota Lynx players celebrated the 2025 All-Star Weekend by livestreaming basically the entire thing on the platform Twitch. Courtney Williams and Natisha Hiedeman took viewers inside practices and parties, picking up 500,000 views and reaching 70,000 followers to their account, StudBudz. Sports Illustrated called it a "generation-defining piece of WNBA content."

During warm ups, the players wore shirts that said “Pay Us What You Owe Us.”

Meantime during the game Napheesa Collier broke an all-star game scoring record. Joining Minnesota Now to talk about the game, plus the Twins and other Minnesota sports news, are our sports contributors, Wally Langfellow and Eric Nelson.

In recent years, the cost of having a pet has risen even faster than inflation in general. Average prices for pet-related goods and services went up 28 percent between June 2020 and June 2025. The cost of veterinary care went up 42 percent. Those numbers come from government data that tracks the prices of consumer goods and services.

Rescues in Minnesota have reported a surge in people giving up their pets for financial reasons.

The North Minneapolis Pet Resource Center is working to help people hold onto their animals by providing food and other supplies at no cost — and pointing them toward pet-friendly housing.

Shannon Glenn is the executive director of My Pit Bull is Family, the organization that runs the resource center. She spoke to Minnesota Now host Nina Moini about how her organization is helping pets stay with their families.

A new report that looks at the impact of climate change on the Great Lakes region finds that it’s getting warmer, faster. And that could have serious consequences. The report by the Environmental Law and Policy Center included work from more than a dozen leading scientists and experts from the Midwest and Canada. It was an update to a 2019 assessment.

Joining Minnesota Now host Nina Moini is the lead author of the report Don Wuebbles, who is also a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

The Minneapolis DFL endorsed its first mayoral candidate in 16 years over the weekend. After a full day of haggling at the Target Center on Saturday, more than 60 percent of voters at the convention gave a thumbs up to Democratic Socialist and current state Sen. Omar Fateh. He is one of several candidates planning to run against incumbent Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey in the fall. Frey has served two terms as mayor since 2018.

Journalist Kyle Stokes reported on the convention for Axios Twin Cities and he joined Minnesota Now with the details.

Control of the Minnesota Legislature is on the line again after state Sen. Nicole Mitchell announced Monday that she is resigning her seat. Mitchell was convicted on felony charges related to a 2024 burglary arrest. Her resignation pushes the state Senate into a temporary tie. MPR News politics reporter Dana Ferguson joined Minnesota Now to explain.